What’s Up with Ubuntu-Art?

This item from Ubuntu-Art showed up in my RSS reader. It’s an ad for Levitra masquerading as a Linux font. Now, I’ve seen message-board spam and blog comment spam, but this is something new. I’m kind of shocked that the community of registered users hasn’t reported this account and had it banned. I’m tempted to sign up for an account myself to report it.

The New Linux.com

According to Linux Journal, the Linux Foundation has launched a new website called Linux.com. Apparently, the site is to serve as a central clearing house for Linux information. It includes news and blogs related to both the Linux kernel and individual Linux distros. It looks like the RSS feeds were empty when I tried to view them, but I subscribed to the home page’s feed anyway.

I look forward to seeing what happens with this site. It would be nice to have easy access to so much Linux content straight from the horse’s mouth.

Ubuntu-Art

As mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been a big fan of Gnome-Look, a website that features themes, wallpapers, and widgets for the GNOME desktop, Ubuntu’s default graphic interface. However, poking around in the top navigation bar on Gnome-Look has revealed an even better site for my needs: Ubuntu-Art. Basically, Ubuntu-Art is just like Gnome-Look, except tailored for Ubuntu. That means you don’t have to sort through wallpapers with logos for other Linux distributions like Debian or Fedora to get to things you might actually use.

The way I see it, Gnome-Look is great for people who use minor distros without the level of specific third-party support that Ubuntu and other popular distros have. It’s also good for people who run more than one Linux distro on their computers. But for people who only use Ubuntu, Ubuntu-Art is a better, more targeted choice.

That previous post I linked to didn’t get into the value of these kinds of sites for Linux users. According to The Linux Life, changing the desktop theme is much easier in Linux than in Windows. I’m inclined to agree, since I never even figured out how to change the desktop theme in either XP or Vista.* A source of alternate wallpapers is also really handy. The default Ibex wallpaper of 8.10 isn’t bad, but it’s nice to know there are options if brown either isn’t your color or doesn’t go with your favorite theme. The GNOME desktop comes with tons of customization options, and sites like Ubuntu-Art provide the resources to take full advantage of this customizability.

*For the newbies, in Ubuntu you can see the themes available on your computer by clicking Appearance under System –> Preferences. Your current theme’s square will be outlined in a solid-colored square, and its title will be highlighted. To change the theme, simply click on another theme’s square.